Elephant Camp

Dear Thomas, Lauren and Jacob,


You know we said we were hoping to ride on elephants? We got our wish and a whole lot more! Barty and Arnie took us off to Elephant XL, a camp for elephants who have either retired from working in the jungle helping pull down trees (very hard work and not very good for the environment) or who have been rescued when their mothers have been shot by poachers.


We went for 2 days to learn to be mahouts (they are the people who look after the elephants).


When we arrived we made friends with a little girl called Lilla and some other people who came along just for the morning, then we took a boat across the river from the Elephant Lodge, the place we were staying, to the elephant camp where the elephants spend their day time.



Once we got there we went for a ride on two of the elephants. There are seven elephants and a baby at the camp but only two were there when we arrived, so Barty had to sit on the elephant's neck while two ladies rode in the howdah (that's the wooden seat thing).







Arnie went on a different elephant and he started off in the howdah but ended up on the elephant's neck as well. We stayed in the back pack for that first trip, but then we got a bit more adventurous. Teddy bear was quite comfortable on the elephant's head with this very young mahout (do you remember what that word means?) to look after him.



Us little people didn't have such a good time though, our elephant kept stretching up to eat food from trees and whenever she did, we all fell over! Rabbit even fell right off, and nearly got trodden on.


After the elephant ride we went back in the boat to a lovely waterfall and watched Barty enjoying a swim.
In the next pool down some elephants were also enjoying a swim!



After the waterfall we had lunch then said goodbye to Lilla and the other people who had to go back. Lucky us got to stay and take the elephants into the jungle so they could spend the night finding food. That was it for the day and we all got an early night because we had to be up early next morning.

The first job when we got up was to collect the elephants from the jungle and take them down to the river for a bath because they got filthy looking for food.

It was great fun - Barty and Arnie had big scrubbing brushes and the elephants semed to really like it, especially the baby which swam around the big ones going right under water.

After their bath the elephants had a snack of bamboo for a treat which they carried back to the camp with them.


Next job was to fit the howdah on each elephant.


Because we only rode on the neck the day before, we all got a little ride round the camp. It was MUCH more comfortable and safe.






The last job of all was feeding them some bananas. Arnie and Barty did it with their teeth for some strange reason.

We just did it the normal way.

That was it for the elephants. Here are the words we learned to control them:

1. sai = left
2. kha = right
3. how = stop
4. pai = go
5. doom = go backwards
6. map = lie down

We hope you all have a lovely time at Baz and Bompas's this weekend. We will all be in New Zealand by then, except Arnie who has to go back to Michigan to work. It's about -15 degrees c there, a bit of a change from the heat here!

Lots of love from us all, and from Barty and Arnie too.


P.S. from Barty to Jake the cheeky monkey,

Thank you for the comments Jake, will you come to the Croccy Trail with me? I'd be scared of being eaten by a crocodile on my own. Did Daddy like the cakes you made?

Lots of love from Barty XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

P.S. from Barty to Thom and Lauren,

Have a lovely day at Baz and Bompa's today, I hope you are both having fun at school. Lots of love from Barty. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Village Life...

Dear Jacob, Lauren and Thomas,
Once Barty and Arnie had seen enough of temples, we all went off for a day in a village to see how most people live in Cambodia. We went in a minibus, but when we got there, we went off to the family we were going to help in carts. Ours was pulled by oxen and the other by water buffalo.

We were taken to a field where the owners needed help planting corn. The woman walked up and down the rows throwing manure in dollops every 50 cm or so, then the man added chemical fertilizer. Barty and Arnie and all the other adults had to mix up the manure, fertilizer and soil with their bare hands then push 3 holes in it and drop three seeds. By the way, do you know what manure is made from? Animal poo! Mostly water buffalo and ox poo. We were very glad we didn't have to do it!

These are the seeds they were planting:
When the whole field was done the last job was watering the rows using water from the irrigation channel and two watering cans on a pole. It was hard work!


While Barty and Arnie worked, we had a little rest on the cart.
The water buffalo had a rest too.
After a while we got bored and went to play with a little boy. He had a great toy - can you see what it's made from?The wheels are a kind of fruit that grows on a tree. We thought it was very clever.

It took all the adults about 2 hours to do the field which seemed a long time, but it would have taken the family on their own 3 days. Eventually, they all came back to ride back to the village. Even though they all washed their hands in the irrigation channel, there was still quite a pong on our cart when Barty joined us!


Next stop was the village school. This one is a very nice school compared to some we have seen. Even so there are no computers and the walls are very bare. The only things in the room are one blackboard, the teacher's desk and chair and ones for the children. There aren't any books at all in the classrooms, only a few locked up in the library. At least this school had some nice pictures on the wall that the children drew. Other ones have nothing at all on the walls.



The teacher wasn't in the class when we got there. The children go to school in shifts, some go from 7 to 11am, then the next lot arrive at 12 until 4pm. Sometimes the teachers drink too much rice whisky at lunch time so they don't come back and teach in the afternoon. The children just play around for a while then go home early. We went in and taught them some English. The children were about 10 or 11.


These younger children wanted to see what was happening too.
Arnie taught them to sing "My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean". Every time there was a 'b' they had to either stand up or sit down, the opposite of what they were already doing. It took a lot of explaining and we all did a lot of laughing, especially when Arnie went to sit down and missed the chair. The children all wanted to copy up the song - they had very neat handwriting.


After that we looked around the village. Here's the shop.

And here's a lady getting water. In the villages nobody has a tap inside, everyone uses a well; usually lots of families share the same one.



Our last stop was at the reservoir. This is where the village gets its water for watering the fields - there are channels cut in the ground for it to run through to where it is needed.


Some people were selling food at the reservoir because it is a popular place to go and swim. Can you see what is on sale at the front next to the pink things?

Fried grasshoppers and cockroaches! Barty couldn't try them because he's vegetarian, and Arnie wouldn't but we don't know what his excuse was. Would you have tried them if you were here?

That's all for now - we're going to Laos next, that's another country a little bit north of Cambodia. It's got lots more hills and trees than where we've been, and we're hoping to go for an elephant ride....

Lots of love from us all (by the way, we haven't got any names! What do you want to call us?)

Lots of love from Barty and Arnie as well.

P.S. Hi Thom, Thanks for your letter, we hope you are completely better now. Next time we are home will you make fairy cakes and jelly for us too?

Temples, temples and more temples...

Hello, this post is from the place we flew to, Siem Riep. We spent our first two days in Cambodia being taken by a very nice guide called Sak to the ancient temples nearby. They were built around the 10th to 12th centuries by various kings, mostly called Jayavarman. King Jayavarman VII was especially busy and did lots of construction, including the most famous of the temples, Angkor Wat. This first photo is looking across the moat to one of the 5 entrances. You can just see the towers of the temple itself in the distance.

Here we are a bit closer up with the temple reflected in a waterlily pond.

Barty and Arnie spent ages walking around this temple while we dozed in the backpack as we were tired from the journey. In fact, we dozed for most of the morning because after this temple there was another, and another, and another... this photo is from one called Banteay Srey, which Barty said was very beautifully carved but we didn't think it was very different from all the others.

Next day guess where we went - that's right, MORE temples! We actually really liked this one though. Firstly because it was all covered in jungle with trees growing on the roofs and down the walls.

It's all the trees that destroyed the temple, they started growing in gaps between stones then as the roots got bigger and bigger the stones fell down. We had fun climbing in the tree roots.

Secondly we liked it because it was used in the film Tomb Raider. This doorway and the tree by it are in the film.

The temples are a mixture of Buddhist and Hindu, mainly Buddhist now. Here are some Buddhist monks:

You see the monks everywhere, in the cities and towns and out in the villages. They live in monasteries and early each morning they stream out with their bowls and canvas bags to collect alms (donations of food). When someone puts food in their bag, they kneel down in front of the monk and the monk chants a blessing. It's seen as a great honour to give alms to a monk.

We hope you've all had a good week at school,
Lots of love from all of us including Barty and Arnie.

P.S. from Barty
Thanks for the note Lauren, glad you're liking Mrs Herrick. I used to hate teaching myths and legends, you'll have to let me know what you think of them. Which ones are you doing? Your book by Michael Morpurgo that he signed for you is about Robin Hood - you could take that in to show, it's a legend.